There Are Many Ways to Make Money

It was obvious if one thought about it, but every quest had its own unique characteristics that differentiated it from others.

With dozens of different settings like fantasy, martial arts, fusion, ancient, modern, SF, and steampunk, and hundreds of different types of situations to resolve like survival, murder, escape, mystery, disaster, and calamity, aside from the clients being in desperate situations, every quest had to be different.

The quest [I Don’t Think I’m the Protagonist No Matter How I Look at It] also had its own unique characteristics compared to other quests.

That characteristic was the common isekai situation where an ordinary person living a normal life gets dragged to another dimension by a transcendent being.

This was exactly why Yuseong chose this quest despite its B+ rank.

‘Anyone who’s read genre novels should be able to imagine this kind of obvious situation with their eyes closed. Of course reality won’t be exactly like novels, but they should still provide some reference.’

Being able to roughly predict the situation and development, even if not perfectly accurate, was an enormous advantage.

It meant he could enter with plans already made for how to proceed with the quest.

‘Even if half the plans have to be scrapped because things are different from expectations… the remaining half will be enough.’

Impersonating an administrator was just the beginning.

Yuseong bought an outfit, leather shoes, and a few other items from a general store.

Not modern clothes but rough clothes and leather shoes that strongly evoked medieval Europe.

Sneaking behind a building to avoid being spotted by people, Yuseong dropped the items he had just bought on the ground and began stomping on them.

An incomprehensible action.

But as if that wasn’t enough to satisfy him, Yuseong even grabbed and tore at the clothes and shoes with force.

It took less than a minute for perfectly good clothes to become rags.

“This should be enough for the clothes…”

After changing out of his clothes into the ragged ones, Yuseong began his disguise.

He disheveled his neat hair into a complete mess, and used items bought from the general store to create large fake scars on his face or apply adhesive around his eyes and skin to make the skin appear distorted.

Finally, after smearing soot all over his body and rolling on the ground a few times, a splendid beggar was created.

It wasn’t an elaborate disguise, but since the goal was just to deceive briefly, this was enough.

‘Now then, shall we go?’

Slipping out of the building when no one was around, Yuseong walked slowly down the street while dragging one leg.

“What’s that?”

“Looking at his clothes he seems like a resident… But was there a resident like that? Don’t think I saw him yesterday?”

People assumed Yuseong was a member of the village.

Only a day had passed so no one had fully grasped who was in the village, and unlike others still wearing modern clothes, Yuseong was dressed head to toe in rough clothes that medieval European villagers would wear.

Pretending not to notice the gazes directed at him, Yuseong wandered the village at a steady pace.

And when passing through the most crowded area, Yuseong gave the promised signal.

“…Excuse me.”

A boy blocking his path.

Yuseong spoke in a voice lowered so much his original voice was unrecognizable.

“What?”

“You looked like you needed help. It’s not much, but please use this for a meal at least.”

A small commotion arose from the surroundings.

It was because the boy had taken out a gold coin.

1 gold.

While not a huge amount, it wasn’t the kind of money you’d give to a beggar.

However, what happened next was even more shocking.

“Hmph! Who do you think you’re trying to fool with this?”

Clang!

Yuseong threw the coin the boy had offered onto the ground.

A small disturbance broke out over ownership of the coin that had bounced off in an odd direction, but no one paid attention to that fight.

In this situation, both the boy offering 1 gold as charity and the beggar throwing away the money were surprising.

The boy, who had been looking at Yuseong with an incredulous expression, took out more coins from his pocket.

“Is 3 gold enough?”

Clang!

“5 gold?”

Clang!

“…10 gold.”

“That’s barely enough to fill my stomach. Though it’s hardly worth calling repayment, I’ll tell you one piece of useful information.”

Yuseong whispered something in a small voice into the boy’s ear so those nearby couldn’t hear.

The boy tilted his head.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I’ve told you clearly. Whether you gain anything from it depends on you.”

Leaving only those words behind, Yuseong left without looking back.

-Is this really okay?

‘Yeah, this is enough.’

After getting away from people’s sight, Yuseong quickly wiped off his disguise, changed back into his original clothes, and left the village.

Though he had to spend considerable time, effort, and money for a brief act, he didn’t feel the slightest regret knowing it would come back tens or hundreds of times over before long.

Yuseong hunted wolves on the second day as well.

While he could have hunted monsters if he wanted to, that would have required going far from the village so he had no choice.

Between hunts, Yuseong visited the village to observe the atmosphere among people and intervene appropriately.

Though calling it intervention might be an exaggeration.

It was nothing more than keeping the topic from shifting away from the story of the beggar and boy by constantly reminding people of the incident and gradually embellishing the story.

And so came the third day.

Perhaps thanks to his careful nurturing, the seeds Yuseong had planted sprouted magnificently.

“Hey, hey, what’s that?”

“Can’t you see? This is a sword, this is a shield, this is…”

“Who do you take me for? Not those! Where did you get all that equipment?”

The boy who had only carried wooden weapons just the day before was now fully armed.

If they were cheap items it would be somewhat understandable, but that wasn’t the case.

A sword with a faint blue glow, a shield with flame patterns inlaid on iron plates, leather armor gleaming with a black sheen.

Even among those currently in the lead, few had equipment of this caliber, so people’s shock was inevitable.

“Hmm, should I tell you or not.”

After keeping them in suspense for a while, the boy finally opened his mouth under the people’s intense stares.

“You remember what happened yesterday, right?”

“Yesterday… you mean that beggar?”

“Yes. That’s what the beggar told me. Something about treasure being hidden where three trees meet when the sun is highest?”

“What does that even mean?”

“At first I thought it was nonsense too. But since I’d already spent 10 gold, I looked around the village just in case, and by chance I found the place the beggar mentioned.”

The spot where the shadows of three trees overlapped.

The boy’s story of digging there thinking he had nothing to lose and finding a pouch full of gold coins left people with dumbfounded expressions.

It was an unbelievable story, but with a living witness right before their eyes, they couldn’t not believe it either.

‘No, why is this unbelievable?’

Compared to their current situation, a beggar revealing the location of treasure was nothing.

Why, isn’t this the kind of situation that often appears in novels and manga as hidden pieces or strange encounters?

People became desperate to find the beggar.

And just as people’s excitement was about to explode at its peak, the beggar they had been searching for appeared.

“Ahem. It’s not much, but please accept this.”

A gentle-looking young man made the first move.

After checking the contents of the pouch, Yuseong brought his mouth to the young man’s ear and whispered in a small voice.

“There is treasure hidden under the third largest rock in the forest where wolves dwell.”

It was 100% nonsense.

Finding the third largest rock in a forest was nonsensical to begin with, never mind treasure.

However, the young man retreated with a serious expression as if he had just heard an incredible secret, and immediately after, a middle-aged man wearing glasses held out a pouch of gold coins.

‘This is literally taking money to make money.’

He didn’t feel the slightest regret about investing his entire fortune to outfit the boy with equipment.

It was only 100 gold after all.

It took less than 5 minutes to recover his initial investment.

But Yuseong couldn’t be satisfied yet.

10 gold was just the minimum amount.

With just one catalyst, he could earn dozens of times more profit in an instant.

And that catalyst came much faster than expected.

“It’s too vague, could you tell me in more detail?”

“You expect too much for just 10 gold.”

The college-age woman smiled mysteriously as she handed over another pouch of gold coins, and Yuseong told her slightly more detailed information than what he had just shared.

Of course, since the information itself was false, it didn’t matter how detailed it was, but the college woman nodded as if satisfied.

Naturally, people who saw this weren’t about to retreat after paying just 10 gold.

The base amount doubled, and some people even paid more than ten times as much.

Since ordinary people wouldn’t have that kind of money, it meant even those in the lead had been caught up in Yuseong’s scam.

“More details.”

Taking the pouch Park Seojun held out, Yuseong desperately held back his expression from breaking as he spouted plausible-sounding nonsense while imagining the northern area he had never visited.

As a result, Yuseong earned a total of 20,000 gold on the third day, and on the following fourth day he earned even more than the previous day with 30,000 gold.

This happened because those who hadn’t found treasure paid even more money the next day to get more detailed information.

‘I should wrap this up here.’

One day might be understandable, but it made no sense that a thousand people searching everywhere for two days couldn’t find a single treasure.

He had considered giving some people money like the boy he had used as bait and having them pretend to find treasure, but decided against it thinking there was nothing good about having more people know the secret.

“There are plenty of other ways to make money without taking unnecessary risks.”

He could spread rumors about an incredible item appearing when all the pieces were gathered and scatter fake item pieces that just looked genuine, or he could corner the market on items and manipulate prices at will.

‘I need to gather as much money as possible.’

It wasn’t just about buying expensive items and skills.

His pockets getting heavier meant his competitors’ pockets getting lighter.

That would naturally lower their purchasing power and greatly reduce their growth potential.

“If you can’t climb up, you just have to pull down those above you.”

Yuseong smiled coldly while looking down out the window.

People wandering the village with bloodshot eyes searching for him.

There were still over ten days remaining until the end of this preliminary stage.

He was extremely curious to see how far he could rise, and how far others could fall, in that time.